With advertisers spending 47% more on Google Shopping ads than they did a year ago, if you’re not already using Google Shopping to promote your business, then it’s time to seriously consider it.
First released in 2012, Google Shopping provides an ‘eBay like’ platform where businesses can advertise their products and generate additional sales.
Overall Google Shopping is a wonderful opportunity for merchants to grow their sales in a cost effective way, without adding a lot of extra work, and here’s why’
- It links directly with a product feed, so you don’t need to set up listings or new data
- It is only available to eCommerce, making it quite cost effective
- Provides a great way to scale your sales in a profitable manner
- Can be managed directly inside of Adwords
- Generally converts better than standard adwords campaigns as people are in a buying mindset.
How Google Shopping Works:
Google shopping works by creating a shopping feed from your website, which it then imports into Google Merchant Center, which then connects to your Adwords account.
This feed contains all of your product information, pricing, shipping and descriptions so that Google can automatically market your products. Your product feed is also required if you want to run Dynamic remarketing campaigns.
Like all of Google’s advertising platforms, Google Shopping relies on a PPC model where you pay per click. Where Google shopping differs from Adwords however is that customers see your products and your prices before they click. This rules out the issue of price shopping and paying for clicks where people were just researching.
Results from Google Shopping:
Over the last few years we’ve seen mixed results from merchants using the platform. As a general rule of thumb if you’re competitive on price then you’ll do very well.
However if you sell on platforms like eBay and are cheaper on there, then you’ll be paying for clicks and then the buyers will still go on to buy on eBay ‘ where you’ll pay double fees anyway.
How to set up and use Google Shopping in Magento:
Overall there are 8 steps that are required to get your business on Google shopping. These range from development based tasks to install your feed, to technical marketing to refine your feed, right through to optimization and knowledge of Adwords to connect everything and make it run seamlessly.
Step 1: Install Google Feed
The first step is to install the extension that will generate your feeds into Magento. We recommend using Wyomind Datafeed Manager. This extension allows you to easily produce and configure feeds for Google Shopping as well as other shopping or integration services.
Step 2: Set custom attribute for Google field ID
Once the feed extension is installed in Magento, you can then move into the second step ‘ setting the custom Google ID field. This needs to be set up as a Custom Attribute where you can enter the unique category ID that is most relevant for your product.
Step 3: Set Google taxonomy for all products
The third step is to work through all of your products assigning them the Google product taxonomy. This ID number helps Google to show your product when it is relevant. It also works as the main form of segmentation that you have within Adwords.
For example unlike standard Adwords campaigns where you can bid at the ad level, in Google Shopping you bid at the product category level ‘ so its important that you take time to assign these accurately.
Step 4: Link feed to Merchant Center
Once everything on your website is set up, its time to pull your feed through to Google Merchant Center. This is Googles processing hub for all feed data that is used in both Adwords & Google Shopping.
As a part of this connection you’ll need to assign shipping rules for your products. If this isn’t pulled through the feed, it can be done under the ‘shipping’ section.
Step 5: Check errors to ensure feed pulls through
Once your feed pulls through its quite common for there to be errors in it. Perhaps its a missing GTIN, incorrect shopping, or products that lack SKU’s, there is always problems when you first pull a feed through. Its important to check that your feed fits with all of Googles Product Feed Specifications.
This is why Step 5 is to work through all of these errors to make sure that your products get approved so that you can marketing them through Adwords. Some of these fixes may require knowledge of XML so that you can make adjustments to your feed if necessary.
Step 6: Connect Merchant Center to Adwords
This step is relatively straightforward but a step that most people miss. It’s important that you accept the integration on both sides to ensure that your feed pulls through smoothly.
Step 7: Set up Google Shopping campaign
Now that everything is integrated on the technical level, it’s time to set up your Google ‘Shopping campaign. This is setup much like a regular campaign as you can see below:
Google Shopping management tips
Now that your campaign is up and running it’s not exactly time to sit back and relax. In order to get the best results from your investment in Google shopping we recommend that you take some time on a weekly basis to manage your campaign carefully.
A few of the ways that we recommend include:
- Campaign segmentation
By segmenting your campaign using labels you gain greater control of your campaign from many levels. Try applying labels to different sub-categories, or even extracting different feeds for geographic pricing.
- Customised category level bids
By digging into your data, you’ll find that different sub categories convert at different levels and drive differing levels of revenue. In order to maximise on high ROI area’s of your campaign, consider increasing the bid level. Similarly, for areas with low ROI decrease your bid to try and raise your total ROI.
- Sale Status
By effectively utilizing the ‘sale’ status in your feed, you’ll be able to capture a greater level of traffic when you have products that are discounted.
Need a hand?
If you need a hand getting your store connected to Google Shopping, simply get in touch and we’ll be happy to help out. Our certified developers and team of Google certified marketers will be happy to help leverage Google Shopping to accelerate your online success.
Helpful links: How to get Google Reviews, How to grow a business
